Devotional Polytheism – The Cell of Sister Patience

‘This work, devotional work, is the heart, the beating, pumping, living heart of a tradition, the lifeblood of a faith. I believe it is that for which we were made.’

This is one of the books that first introduced me to devotional polytheism in 2015. On a reread I found it not only provides a really solid introduction to the subject but that many of the words within still speak to my soul as they did then.

Krasskova describes devotion as ‘the heart of our traditions’ ‘the art and cultivated practice of loving the Gods’ and building and maintaining ‘right relationship.’ I related strongly to this heart-focused approach and noted how close it is to Bhakti in the Hindu religion. If we’re going to do devotion our hearts have got to be in it, we’ve got to do it for love, for the path can be tough.

Covered are a number of ways of building relationships with the Gods including prayer, meditation, altar and shrine work, offerings, and daily and seasonal rituals. There are also sections on other essentials such as grounding, centring, shielding, discernment, dealing with miasma and cleansing.

What spoke to me most as a polytheistic monastic was the emphasis on prayer. I agreed wholly that ‘prayer is the gateway to devotional practice.’ Krasskova defines prayer as ‘communication with the Gods (or ancestors)’ and speaks of the different forms of prayer including ‘set prayers,’ ‘freeform’, ‘formal or informal’. I found the following to be incredibly helpful in describing something I have experienced but hadn’t quite found the right words for: ‘The formulaic prayers help build consistency and the actual conversation – extempore prayers – build relationship. Both are necessary.’

I felt an affinity with what Krasskova says about ritual. ‘For a devotional polytheist, the purpose, first and foremost, of a ritual is paying homage to, honoring, and expressing veneration for the Holy Powers (Gods and/or ancestors).’ Whilst social gatherings and seasonal celebrations have their place I’ve always found the rites that move me into deeper and more meaningful encounters with the sacred are worshipful and focused on the Gods.

Krasskova writes beautifully and honestly on the joys and perils of mystical experience – on ‘opening oneself up to the experience of the Gods’ and the extremities of emotion and life-changing effects this brings. ‘The sacred always goes hand in hand with terror.’ ‘Devotional experiences can shake and shatter the world, move the ground from beneath our feet, open us up in ways we never, ever conceived of and that is the nature of devotion.’

Meeting the Gods is life-changing, revolutionary, knocks our ego from the centre of our lives and places the Gods there at the very heart instead. They become the ‘central focus of our lives around which everything else revolves (and around which eventually, everything else falls into place).’

She also speaks openly about dark nights of the soul and fallow periods. ‘We have all walked the monstrous road alone and weeping in the darkness.’

She provides support for those in spiritual crisis (which is different to ‘ongoing pathology’) saying ‘it rips away the brittle masks of our ego, it helps us cleanse ourselves of all those things that keep us from seeing clearly, that keep us mired in the masks and facades a very diseased world creates.’ It is ‘ulitmately very, very beneficial’, ‘necessary and good’, ‘but oh, it is hard.’

It was heartening to find the value of devotion upheld so passionately. ‘It is the most important work that any of us will ever do and I think it’s crucial.’

Devotional Polytheism is valuable because it not only provides a good introduction but goes into the deeper and more difficult aspects of Deity relationships you don’t come across in the wider Pagan community. This landmark book is a must-read for all new newcomers to devotional polytheism and includes a depth of wisdom for those further along the path.

This book was published in 2012. When I first read it in 2015 I was delighted to find a kindred spirit who shared my deep devotion to the Gods and practices as a spiritworker, albeit in the Hellenic rather than the Brythonic tradition.

It is a collection of essays covering diverse topics from relationships with Deities, land spirits and personal spirits to practices such as oracular trance and possession and the use of entheogens. As the author states, it ‘isn’t geared towards beginners’ but is a record of ‘thoughts and experiences’ that serve to ‘inspire and stimulate’ ‘anyone on a devotional and / or spirit-work path’.

In the introduction Winter notes the term ‘spirit-worker’ is recent and is ‘not well defined. But it generally indicates a polytheist and / or animist who serves the gods and spirits directly in some capacity, and with a level of intensity and devotion above the average worshipper… They might serve a community, but unlike a a shaman they don’t necessarily have to. A spirit-worker traverses the road between humans and gods, between this world and the otherworlds, and they do this because they must, because they are called to, and because it is quite literally their work in life.’

She says, ‘devotional polytheist’ ‘was coined partly as a counterpoint to strict reconstructionism’. The differences lies in placing ‘a high level of importance on personal and direct experience of the holy powers’ and the devotional practices of ‘prayer, ritual, offerings etc’ whilst remaining respectful of the historical sources rather than attempting to reconstruct past traditions.

The rest of the essays form an exploration of these ‘twin paths’. A piece that particularly still resonates is ‘Mysticism as Vocation in Modern Paganism’. Here Winter rails against the view not only of secular society but ‘the majority of pagans’ that ‘spiritual vocation’ ‘is a luxury to be fitted around daily life’. Why cannot ‘home, family and career’ ‘be fitted around spiritual vocation?’ With no state support for Pagan religious vocations here in the UK those of us who share such a calling are left with a constant struggle to balance the need for financial security with fulfilling our calling from the Gods and spirits.

Those who follow Winter / Dver’s blog ‘A Forest Door’ will know she writes beautifully about her relationship with lands spirits. Here, too, she describes her practice, traversing her ritual landscape, carrying a ‘beeswax taper’ ‘like a ritual torch’, following crow feathers, making offerings of ‘mandrake root’, ‘an old and crackled coyote’s tooth’, ‘fly agaric’, for a local land spirit.

In ‘Evolving Patron Relationships’ and ‘Two Decades with Dionysos’ Winter talks about how He crept into her life ‘in bits and pieces’ with poetry, red wine, the Doors and how she became a Hellenic Polytheist and served her God ‘in the community at large’ before seeming to withdraw in order to lead her elsewhere – into ‘entanglement’ with the spirits. She prompts the reader to ‘recognise the possibility that a patron relationship might end’ or one might find it ‘evolves in a new unexpected directions’ ‘to where you needed to be all along’. I cannot imagine my relationship with Gwyn ap Nudd ending but do appreciate the warning of that potential and for unexpected change.

‘The Gods Are Real and Trance Isn’t Just Visualisation’ is important in stating that argument in relation to the writings of Diana Paxon and others who fail to point out the difference between ‘visualising a pre-set series of events’ and ‘actually meeting the gods and spirits in a foreign land’.

Of immense value are the pieces documenting Winter’s reconstruction of her oracular practice for Apollon based on the traditions at Delphi. Winter visited Delphi in 2003 and performed ritual and ceremony and a night long vigil. She was later inspired to take up the practices of the Pythiai after seeing similarities between her landscape of Cascadia and that of Delphi. This inspired a pilgrimage to the source of her local headwaters and to setting up her own adyton andtaking to the tripod on the seventh day of the month. In ‘On the Tripod’ she describes emptying herself to receive Appollon’s words.

‘Lord Apollon,
enter into this place
made only for Your entry
and no other’s.

I have emptied out my skull,
and await your voice to fill it.’

Eight years on I have found this book to be packed with wise words and inspiration and to be incredibly relatable as someone still walking the ‘twin paths’ of devotional polytheism and spirit-work as a polytheistic monastic. I would recommend it as a core resource for anyone wanting to learn more about these paths or delve more deeply into the issues that confront modern practitioners and the struggles and joys of building sacred relationships.